Random thoughts…

The date and time features of Windows Vista were a huge improvement over previous versions. From better time zone support to better visuals with the new flyout, tooltip etc. no expense was spared in delivering a great experience for users. However, the Vista analog clock face had a major issue which caused those of us on the dev team to have many sleepless nights. The tossing and turning caused by this anxiety was so unbearable that it had to be sorted out once and for all in Windows 7.

As you can see from the Vista image above, when the minute hand reaches 10 to the hour it is slightly obscured by the highlight overlay. You may say it’s not a big deal but for those of us on the dev team this was simply unacceptable, we couldn’t sleep at night knowing our customers were going to see this up to 24 times a day – we had to fix this (note: some of us on the dev team suffer from OCD ).

So here is the new Windows 7 analog clock. We’ve improved the highlight overlay and also increased the size of the centre point. The minute hand doesn’t disappear anymore We think our customers will be happy with this enormous change and we certainly sleep better at night knowing it has been fixed.

You’ll also notice that we added the day name under the digital clock and added a message to notify the user that DST has ended (this message is displayed for 7 days after the change has occurred, we already give a 7 day advance warning of upcoming DST changes).